Prince Of Lies
by We Stole Vodka From The Optic
Summary: The most successful villains are the ones people would take a mortal blow for. AU.


**Yoooo. Does anyone remember this? It was a short story I had started before Vindicated, but got rather bored with it and then started Vindicated. It was the idea that Souji was the killer, and Ryuacchi proposed the OneShot prompt I put at the end of Chapter 34 in Vindicated. So I thought, oh what the hell, I'll write it back as a OneShot.**

**Enjoy!**

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Prince Of Lies

There are those whispers on the edge of Souji's mind. Such damning, beautiful whispers that curl around the edges of his thoughts and thread their way in, sealing themselves within his genius, burying themselves within the fact that Souji has always, and will always, hate humanity and all its designs.

He's a misanthrope, a gargantuan one. Some would call him cynical, world weary even, but Souji knew who he was. Souji always knew who he was. And he, was a misanthrope and hater of humanity.

And it was with colossal effort that he obliged by his parents' wishes and moved to Inaba. But it was not the fact that Souji, being human, being a child, had wanted to please his parents that made him go. It was the angelic whisper that curled in his ears like soft fluff that made him go. It had whispered,

"_Imagine what you may find there, Child Of Man."_

Souji often thought himself crazy, perhaps insane. After all, hearing foreign, alien, _beautiful _voices was a sign of insanity, no? And so, he wondered vaguely if he was going insane as he sat on the train, bored and tired from the long journey from Tokyo to the god-forsaken boonies. But he had cast away the theory and had quickly fallen asleep, cheek pressed against the cold, icy glass of the train window, the countryside passing by in a smearing blur.

He remembered a dream about a gorgeous, long-legged woman and a long-nosed man. But the details slipped through his fingers like water into a sink, and Souji had gotten off the train to get to the next one.

And it was there, that he first heard of the tacky Mayumi Yamano and her affairs.

"_Tch," _He thought, looking up at the large TV and the picture of the short-haired, green-eyed woman as the announcers talked trash about her. _"What a totally tacky bitch."_

And what he didn't know, was the fact that this would start a chain of events that were so very enthralling, and were the key to what Souji would find.

* * *

"Welcome to Inaba."

His hand twitched within hers, gray eyes locked with an unusual shade of light brown that seemed a little too bright beneath the gas station cap. She/He had smooth skin, pale, like marble. Her limbs were long, like a spider's, and Souji imagined silver strands curling from the tips of her fingers to trap him within her web.

But, he reminded himself, she was just a gas station attendant. Nothing more, nothing less, and he needed to stop observing her as if she were an insect beneath a microscope.

Souji flinched when a shock crawled up his arm, curling around the skin like something so incredibly powerful, and it was not unlike the kind of shock one received when filled with electrons. It was something powerful, something Souji couldn't quite place.

Then, that voice, the one threaded around him like spiderweb.

"_We have the same thoughts, you and I."_

The gas station attendant looked at him expectantly.

"_We only want what is best for humanity. It's destruction."_

And she let go of his hand, before leaving to do other things. Souji gasped, feeling a weight press over him as he leaned against his uncle's car. His cousin, a brown-haired girl with large hazel eyes asked if he was okay, and he did not answer.

The voice had perturbed him.

* * *

His uncle, Ryotaro, is neglectful, Souji thinks. Leaving a little girl to stay home alone, and do all of the household duties herself. But his cousin is brave, and it was a terrible shame that she would grow up to be like the rest of the girls these days, like Mayumi Yamano, like humanity in itself.

It is one of those few days that Souji has a glimmer of hope buried within him. But he eradicates it quickly, before it can do its damage.

Hope was for people who couldn't take action for themselves.

Under the guise of still feeling sick, he slips away from the dinner table, and his cousin, to retreat to his room.

* * *

The dreams he has that night are beautiful dreams of fog, of destruction, of a one-eyed being who engulfs the world in delicious lies. But most of all, Souji dreams of a woman in white, who extends her hand to him from within in the fog.

Something dark writhes within him, but he chokes the feeling, the emotion. And he takes her hand and shakes it.

Because he feels safe there, and they share the same interests, like she said.

"_Thou art the one," _She whispers into his ear, holding him tightly, enthralling him with her spider-like movements. _"Who closes the door."_

* * *

She tells him what he must do, and under the guise of night, he slips from the soft, loving Dojima home and hurries to the Amagi Inn, his eyes tinged with more than a little yellow, his eyes ringed with red, and his heart beating wildly within his chest like a drum.

There's someone else there too, intending to do exactly what he had wanted to do.

When Mayumi is pushed into the TV, and the detective watches without blinking, without batting an eye at such a strange event, his mouth curling into what would definitely count as a Cheshire grin. The detective extends his hand, just as the woman in white did, and he says,

"We're gonna get along, me and you."

And Souji takes his hand, without saying a word.

* * *

Somewhere, deep within his stomach, a ball of ice began to grow.

And he wonders why he did it.

And then he doesn't care.

* * *

When Satonaka and Amagi take him to Junes, or attempt to, Souji comes upon the crime scene. Mayumi is dead.

Does he care? The answer is no. She had deserved to die. The woman in white had willed it so. Adachi, as you learn the detective's name, does care, considering the fact that he threw up his lunch into a throng of bushes. The two exchange looks, with Souji nodding, and Adachi growing red with embarrassment.

No one seems to notice the two, and only seem to care about the fact that Mayumi's dead body is red with blood, her limbs ripped apart.

Somewhere along the line, Souji realizes that he needs to divert the attention from himself, and make a game of this.

* * *

A game requires pawns, pieces to dangle on lonely strings and watch them rip each other apart. So when Souji takes Yosuke's hand and rips him from the trashcan he'd gotten himself in, Souji holds onto Yosuke's hand a little too long.

He's found his first piece to the game.

* * *

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that Hanamura's in love with Konishi. But it also doesn't take one to see that Konishi hates Hanamura. It's interesting, Souji thinks, and he conspires to throw the girl into the TV, and start the real game.

But there's only the question, of when.

And whether it's him who should really do it.

* * *

Adachi gets to her first. And Souji is slightly irritated by the detective's hastiness in the matter, but at the same time, Souji realizes he's achieved two things in a span of one day.

He's diverted attention from himself.

And he's started the game.

That night, he dreams of the woman in white again, but Adachi is there as well, running his palms down the side of her arms, lips parted as he stares at her. Souji interjects, hugging the woman from behind and sliding his chin into the crook of her neck.

She smells of darkness, and rain, and… _fog._

Adachi's eyes gleam in jealousy, and envy, and the detective presses a kiss to the woman's forehead.

* * *

Hanamura's Shadow is the most pathetic thing he's seen. And the Shadow reflects the person it manifested from.

Hanamura is pathetic as well.

* * *

_Magatsu Izanagi _whispers in his ear, the same haunting words of the woman in white,

"Thou art the one, who closes the door."

"Thou art the one."

"**Thou art the one."**

"_Thou art the one."_

* * *

Satonaka's Shadow is just as pathetic as Hanamura's. Strong, brazen, stupid Chie had a inferiority complex, and Souji stores that fact away, deep within his mind, filing it into things he can use for later, for when he uses Satonaka to his advantage as well.

For now, though, he chokes down everything, stifles his nihilism and misanthropy, and shoots down the dominatrix with a placid look.

* * *

When he and Chie are alone, with Yukiko still in the TV World, and Chie fretting about the fact that they may not save her, Souji takes her hand, pushes her against the bathroom wall of the men's room at Junes, and kisses her heartily.

Pushing away, he whispers, his voice ragged with something he can't pinpoint,

"You're so much _cuter _than her, Chie-chan."

She's under his command in an instant.

She's another pawn.

* * *

He dreams about the woman in white, again. And she seems angry with him.

"You're just like _**him."**_

He isn't sure who she's talking about.

* * *

They don't save Amagi.

Souji did this, on purpose, to see what would happen. And Adachi knows it. Carting the girl's body away, the detective slips Souji a note, telling him to meet Adachi in the cemetery later that night. It seems almost corny, Souji thinks, to have the two villains meet in a cemetery late at night, discussing their evil plans.

But Adachi is corny, Souji thinks, and vaguely useless as well.

* * *

"Smart idea," Adachi says, leaning against a headstone. "Killing off Amagi. You gonna do it again?"

Souji watches the man wearily, and Adachi reminds him of a cat. After a few seconds of silence, he answers,

"Perhaps."

* * *

Magatsu Izanagi whispers eagerly in his ear,

"_Thou art the one who closes the door."_

"_Thou art the one who's lies shape the truths."_

"_Thou art the one, who's heart reveals a Prince of Lies."_

* * *

In the aftermath of Amagi's death, Satonaka commits suicide. She had blamed herself.

Fitting, he supposes.

A Prince cannot live without his Princess.

* * *

Hanamura doesn't eat for a while. Growing thin with hunger, his face gaunt and pale as he confesses to Souji, that he feels responsible for all of their deaths. Throwing salt into the boy's wounded, bleeding heart, Souji tells him, with a pat on the back, and a reassuring smile on his face, that they needed to make sure the next victims didn't end up like Saki or Chie.

Hanamura simply nods, a puppet on Souji's strings.

* * *

Kanji is different. The sort of different Souji actually liked. The sort of different, that Hanamura seemed to not care much for. They stake-out the area around Tatsumi Textiles, just the two of them, Souji sitting around the corner, watching the shop for 'suspicious' people, Yosuke following Kanji wherever he goes.

It's strange, he thinks, to have be pretending to catch a killer. To pretend to undermine his own plots and plans.

He thinks of Adachi, and wonders, if the time comes, if Adachi will take the fall for him.

The man who so easily manipulates others, is so easily manipulated as well, Souji reasons.

* * *

"Why do you think people get thrown in the TV, when it's not me and you doing it?" Souji says languidly to Adachi, when his uncle and cousin are sleeping and it's just the two of them.

Adachi grins, that same foolish, manipulating grin that he saves for his uncle, Nanako and Souji's pawns. And he replies,

"Who knows?" Then he leans forward, like he's telling Souji a secret only Souji could hear, "Maybe we'll find out?"

For some reason, a writhing, black feeling in Souji's stomach begins.

* * *

There is a feeling he feels when the woman in white takes him in her arms, and presses her cold, icy forehead into the crook of his neck.

He perceives it as remorse.

But slowly, cynically, he smothers the remorse with ice.

* * *

It was like a coin which had two sides.

Kanji. Was he gay, or was he not?

He says he was fearful of being rejected.

But who hasn't been?

Kanji's no different from his other pawns.

* * *

He needs to keep the rest of the team on their toes, so for the next few days, before the camp, Souji lures Naoki into a trap his sister would have so easily fallen for, and throws the boy into his own TV. It will fog that night, Souji knows.

And he knows the team will be powerless to save Naoki Konishi.

* * *

As he had predicted, Naoki dies the next day. The school camping trip is called off, and Yosuke and Kanji are pale with shock as the principal announces his death to the school at an assembly. Yosuke seems most shaken.

And Souji continues to pull them along, string by string.

"_We'll save them next time."_

* * *

"You shoulda told me." Adachi slurs, tangling his fingers in Souji's hair. The man is drunk, worried about his own safety and only his own. Souji says nothing, does nothing, and watches solemnly as Adachi pulls the gun from his holster.

They're alone, as they always are when they have these serious conversations, in the graveyard. Naoki's grave gapes open like an entrance to hell, and Adachi presses the barrel of the gun to Souji's head.

Souji stares.

"Thought we were… _was… _partners, huh, Souji-kun?" The gun is cold, icy, against his forehead. Adachi's eyes narrow, and he slurs again, drunk, "Why'd ya… why'd you have to go and take all the damn glory yourself… Yeesh."

"I'll tell you next time."

Now it's Adachi he is pulling by strings.

* * *

"_Thou art the one who's heart reveals a Prince Of Lies."_

Magatsu Izanagi's whisper is so unfortunately bitter inside Souji's head.

* * *

It hasn't become incredibly hard to tell who will be on the Midnight Channel next.

Everyone has wanted to meet Risette at some point in their life.

Except perhaps, those who saw fakeness as yet another example of humanity taking another swing downward.

* * *

"_We have the same ideals, you and I."_

"_You're just like him."_

"_Welcome to Inaba!"_

"_Does it surprise you to see how little there is around here?"_

Souji has found himself wondering just who the woman in white is.

* * *

They stake-out Marukyu Tofu and by the time they've passed the tofu shop for what seemed like the millionth time, Souji has found his thoughts to be wandering, bored with having to walk back and forth to protect someone who… Souji didn't even want to save.

Risette is fake. Like plastic, like the Heidi Montag of Japan. He hated her; Risette. Her face was plastered everywhere, over billboards and commercials, over music videos, smothering the people who _really _had talent.

He hates her, and he wants to hate her because she represents everything he hates about humanity.

"There's nothing here." He tells them, and sees the cop cars park a few blocks away from the tofu shop. Adachi gets out of one of them and stretches, and Souji is once again reminded of a cat. "Let's come back tomorrow."

Hanamura and Tatsumi agree with him.

* * *

On the way home, Souji sees a hungry cat. The cat paws at him, meowing.

That same feeling, remorse, runs through him again and he hands the cat a fish he'd caught the evening before.

He likes cats.

* * *

Risette's Shadow is just as irritating and selfish as the other Shadows Souji has had the displeasure of fighting. The rainbow-colored stripper suits Risette however, and Souji can't help but think of how… _easy _Risette would be. To manipulate.

It's the bear's Shadow that truly throws him off.

* * *

The ball of ice, buried deep within his stomach hasn't melted.

* * *

Teddie's Shadow would have been his Shadow. That same, nihil feeling. The feeling of emptiness and the knowledge of misanthropy and its cynical, beautiful, jaded designs. He actually enjoys the bear's Shadow, wants to listen to it more, but before he can, the stupid bear has gone and said that single forbidden sentence,

"No… That's a lie…"

Anger swells up inside him, and Souji buries it deep within, and takes his wrath out on the Shadow as it attacks their little team.

It wasn't a lie! Not a lie!

"_As if you would know anything about Truths…" _Magatsu Izanagi whispers.

* * *

He kisses Risette against the shrine when everyone is gone and she has done everything but proclaim her undying love to him. He paws at her, nips at the lobe of her ear, and he can't help but wonder why anyone would find such a… _fake whore _attractive.

He slides his strings into her, and she follows his every command.

She's his, now.

* * *

"_See what you have found, Child of Man?"_

She clings to him, hair silver in the light of the gray room. There are sharp-clawed hands everywhere around them, grabbing at her and him, as they lay beside one another, spent. She curls a leg around him, her pale, inhuman body pressed against his.

"_You have found a great deal of things."_

"Who are you?"

She doesn't answer, and simply smiles.

* * *

Adachi tells him of his plan to throw Mitsuo Kubo into the TV on a foggy night. The boy had turned himself in, and with Adachi presenting sufficient physical evidence, they would be forced to interview him inside the desolate interrogation room. It was there, that Adachi would strike.

"And when Kubo dies, Inaba will be thrown into chaos." Souji says, watching Adachi warily from afar. "We can start randomly throwing multiple people in on rainy days."

"Oh, and your team won't be able to keep up, and all those people will die?"

Souji nods and remorse courses through him as if he'd been given a shot of adrenaline.

"Exactly."

* * *

"Big Bro… are you hiding something?"

He smiles at his cousin reassuringly and tousles her hair, replying,

"'Course not, Nanako. Why would I?"

She blinks at him disbelievingly. And there is such uncertainty and doubt within her eyes.

His little cousin scares him with her intuition and wisdom and knowledge of death.

* * *

Mitsuo Kubo is easy enough to deal with. He was annoying, as Adachi would later tell him, and boring to the point that Adachi had been reminded of a blank canvas. All the canvas had needed, he would later explain, was a bit of red and black to spruce things up and cover the boring blank portrait.

Kubo takes the fall for both of them. And Souji puts his manipulating powers to work,

"Think of all the people that _bastard _has killed," He tells them, and they all lean in as if he's telling an incredibly private story. "I say, we leave him to die."

"Senpai…" Rise looks down, unsure and afraid.

"Yeah…" Kanji's eyes gleam with uncertainty, but his voice is filled with slight joy. "Yeah! S'not like he don't deserve it anyway!"

Yosuke only nods, but his eyes linger on Souji longer than the silverette is comfortable with.

* * *

"You're hiding something, partner." Yosuke tells him later, leaning downwards as he sat on his ugly, squeaky yellow bike that reminded Souji of one of those bathtub ducks that would squeak in an irritating fashion whenever squeezed. Yosuke's eyes narrow, and he brushes a few strands of golden brown hair from his eyes.

Souji watches him carefully,

"Yosuke… how could you…?"

The underhanded tactic works, as Yosuke looks down; hurt.

The strangest sensation runs through him.

`

* * *

Kubo dies a few days later, and the police deem it a suicide.

"Now," Adachi tells him. "The real game begins."

* * *

"_Humans are such… untrustworthy creatures."_

The woman in white holds Adachi inside the room, and Souji simply watches, awaiting his turn.

He feels jealous.

* * *

There's a runt following him.

No, runt would be stretching it.

A _shrimpy, girly, stupid, clueless _Detective Prince is keeping an eye on him and tailing his every move.

It doesn't take a genius to guess that Naoto-_kun _will be next, soon, but for now…

For now, there was a pot to stir some more.

* * *

Person after person.

Woman after woman.

Child after child.

Man after man.

Souji has lost count of the people he's thrown into the TV in the last week. The team is running around, frantic, Rise stressed to her ultimate limit in searching, missing persons reports plastered on every single news broadcast and talk show…

But Souji knows, as well as Adachi, that there is no way in hell that they'll find any of them alive.

Mangled, upside-down, bleeding, is how they'll find them.

Destroyed by their own mental creations; The Shadows.

* * *

Then, amongst all of that, Shirogane finally makes _his _presence known. (Referring to Naoto-chan as a boy makes his stomach churn in ways he cannot even understand.) **He **approaches the team and Souji pretends to have the decency and decorum to shake the Detective **Prince's **hand.

They talk for a bit, and then, Shirogane says the one thing that decides _**his**_ fate, in Souji's book,

"I have reason to believe that one of you is the killer."

* * *

"Who are you?" He asks the woman in white, again.

"I am…" Her whisper is faint, weak. "I am… I am…"

The dream fades away before he can get an answer.

* * *

"_Lies be beautiful things…" _Magatsu Izanagi whispers, as he lies there in the dark, wrapped warmly inside his bed sheets, angry and irritated about not getting an answer.

* * *

"We'll be throwing Shirogane in next, then, huh?" Adachi leans against a headstone, chewing listlessly on his cheek while he awaits Souji's answer.

Souji tells him,

"When it starts to rain, and we know it'll be foggy."

* * *

There's a slip-up he couldn't have possibly imagined.

Someone got to Shirogane before he and Adachi could. They've thrown Shirogane in the TV and now… Shirogane and all of those people that he and Adachi had thrown in before are still in the TV.

Amongst this chaos, Souji realizes that this is his chance to discover who is throwing people in, other than him and Adachi. So he manages to manipulate the remnants of the Investigation Team and save Shirogane, putting everyone behind Naoto.

He wonders if Naoto's Shadow is just as selfish as the others.

* * *

It's a change of pace, Naoto's Shadow. A Shadow that didn't wish to be treated like a child, and Souji's not surprised when everyone acts so surprised at the very notion that Naoto was a girl.

They are idiots.

There is no sure way to manipulate Naoto. This he knows.

But she is totally unaware of the fact that Souji is a murderer.

* * *

"…_ies… Lies…. Prin… o… Lies…"_

Her voice is reminiscent of TV static. He pulls her towards him, and Adachi watches, bored and tired, from the corner of the white-washed room, arms crossed across his chest.

Adachi doesn't seem to care much about the woman in white.

* * *

"I had reason to believe that one of you was the killer." Naoto sighs, a tired, irritated, and exasperated sigh. "I can see clearly now that I was… incorrect."

The way she chooses her words interests Souji. She doesn't wish to say she is wrong.

"Are you going to help us?" He asks, and she frowns.

"Yes."

Kanji seems a little overjoyed, and the blush on his face says it all. Mouth hiding the cruel smile that curls his lips, Souji sees something he can use.

Naoto has made her way into his collection of pawns.

* * *

Naoto seems a little more than disturbed and perturbed when he tells her about Satonaka and Amagi.

"They were both…" She tries to cover her fear with a cool façade, but Souji can smell it. "Murdered?"

"Yes. By the killer. I think…" Souji swallows his cruel smile. "They killed them because they know what we're doing."

"Going into the television?"

"Precisely."

* * *

He resists crying.

Nanako is gone, kidnapped.

Adachi is in the interrogation room with him, while Dojima tries to pry answers out of Souji. But Souji stays quiet.

"Goddammit, Souji!" Dojima bangs his fist on the cold hard table. Souji flinches. Adachi frowns. "Who sent that letter!"

Adachi had sent the first one, on purpose, as part of a plan he and Souji had devised to frighten the little chickens Souji had come to know as pawns. It didn't work, Naoto hadn't taken the bait. No one had. But the second letter wasn't planned. And Dojima, that _idiot, _had left Nanako home all alone.

_Moron._

* * *

"_No clever lies?" _Magatsu Izanagi says as Dojima goes out for a smoke. _"None? I thought thou was smarter than that."_

* * *

She's gone, and his uncle is in the hospital.

For the first time in a very long while, Souji cries.

The tears seem like crocodile tears. False, superficial, so… _Risette-like._

* * *

He feels as if he is the reason for Nanako's dungeon. A beautiful place, covered in marble and other gorgeous, great, heavenly things. He remembers telling her that everyone who dies goes to heaven, and that her mother was there, waiting for her.

There's a single sentence that runs through his head as he slices through Shadows as if they are paper and scream commands to his pawns…

"_I'm sorry I lied."_

* * *

"She's dead!"

The smacking sound of his hand across Namatame's gaunt face doesn't deter him one bit from beating the shit out of this damned man. He hits the sick delivery man again, and Namatame crumples to the floor, his hollow eyes rolling back lazily.

"She's dead," He hears himself yell again. "She's dead and it's your entire fault!"

The fog hugs everything. The windows, his mind, his thoughts, his voice, his heart, his hate. He flicks his head, to where everyone is watching him, pale and lips pressed into a bloodless line,

"Throw the bastard in." He growls.

* * *

They're dying left and right and there is nothing anyone, they, the Investigation Team can do about it. Souji's lips press together and he reminds them all of blank paper, so white and cold and lifeless.

"We were wrong." He says, and they all wonder if he's sincerely sad.

* * *

Adachi kidnaps him.

And they stand in the room with the faceless posters and the blood and the yellow fog that hugs everything and obscures the truth. Adachi's pistol is cold against his head, and there's a single whisper in his ear that makes Souji sick to the core,

"Namatame is so easily to manipulate, Souji-kun." His voice retains that too-nice tone that sickens Souji even more. "He would've made a good pawn, but I got to him first." He chuckles, a sick, twisted chuckle that reminds Souji too much of himself. "Guess I'm _lucky _huh?"

* * *

He falls asleep in Adachi's headlock and there, standing in a world of mist, is the woman in white, her hand outstretched to him, her ruby eyes glittering darkly.

"_I am…" _She whispers. _"Izanami."_

* * *

And then they come, and Adachi knew they would come because they are self-righteous and stupid and Souji _hates them so much right now._

"Adachi!" Naoto is the first one to speak. She usurped his position as leader. Her pistol is whipped from its holster. "Stop!"

Adachi presses the gun languidly to Souji's head, lolls his head to the side and asks,

"Why?" He pauses, and the look, the sick, wicked smile on his face makes everyone sick to the core. It surprises them. "I'm sure Souji wouldn't mind if he died now, would you?"

He looks at Adachi, just as puzzled as he should be.

"You don't want them to hear, right?"

And then he tells them.

* * *

In the end, it's him and them and he knows that he has the advantage because without him, they're worthless, useless.

"Bastard!" Yosuke spits, his kunai rise, his chest puffs out like he's somebody _important. _Rise's face is blank, and Souji suspects that she's thinking back on what they've done together, and the new piece of information that is Souji's guilt. Kanji says nothing, just breathes in and out, his face dark with shadows and other things Souji can't see. Naoto tells him about the crimes he's committed and he doesn't listen.

There are twin lips on his. A Shadow's lips.

"Who gives a shit?"

He raises his double-handed sword.

"WHO CARES!"

And Yosuke pounces.

And Souji knows he's won.

* * *

_**Oh God my wrists hurt from writing this.**_

_**Feedback is appreciated.**_


End file.
